Helen, 63, doesn’t always come to Feet Forward’s weekly “Tuesdays in the Park” events, but when she does, it is to be with the people she knows and cares about, and to offer them her support. Helen was unhoused from 2017 until this past February when she got housing in Longmont through the voucher program. She said her place is tiny, and that it was “disgusting” when she moved in, but she spent time cleaning it up and making it her own, and cannot imagine being unhoused again. She hopes to move into a 1 bedroom in 2023. Helen lives in a low-income apartment building where all the 2-bedroom units were turned into 1-bedrooms and studios. Everyone living there went through Mental Health Partners. Some people work, and some people don’t. Helen lives off her SSDI, a small widow’s benefit, and gets two more years of a “separate entity” through her previous employer when she was declared disabled. Her small income covers her rent, food, bus ticket for the month (which is almost $ 60). She also has an EBT card (food stamps) that she says increased in value during Covid.

Helen’s disability prevents her from working. In 1992, she got rear-ended at a red light on her way to work and her “life has never been the same since.” At the time, she was working as the manager of a magazine fulfillment house, which was work she’d also done back east (she’s originally from the Boston area). She was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease after the accident, and received injections in her neck and lower back. She also was prescribed OxyContin (80 mgs) and Oxycodone (30 mgs). This is, unfortunately, a story we have heard all too often. You can watch it on Dopesick and The Crime of the Century. The case against Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family has been documented extensively by the media. (See https://www.npr.org/2022/03/03/1084163626/purdue-sacklers-oxycontin-settlement and https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/health/sacklers-purdue-oxycontin-settlement.html).

Disgracefully, “members of the Sackler family [have still not] acknowledge[d] wrongdoing or any personal responsibility for the public health crisis” (NYT, March 3, 2022). For Helen, this was not just a “story” she read in the papers – it became her life.

Helen was addicted to opioids until 2017. She said that she didn’t fully realize she’d been addicted until she was fully off them and felt better than she’d felt in years. She said she had no idea she could feel that good without them. Until then, all she knew was that she was miserable and in so much pain, and the only relief she had was the medication she’d been prescribed. She did not go through an addiction program, but weaned herself off the drugs, which is an extraordinary feat. It did not, however, protect her from what came next. One of the things most striking about Helen’s life story is that she became homeless at the same time she recovered from a 25-year-long addiction.

Helen and her husband moved to Colorado from the Boston area in 1989. They raised two sons here. Helen said her husband was a heavy equipment operator, HAZMAT technician, and always worked very hard. They rented with the option to buy in Louisville. They liked cars, and went to car auctions. They also owned property, including a condo in Northampton, MA, and many years later a condo in Golden, and a property in Nevada. But making ends meet was a struggle, and they eventually sold all the properties and used the money to take care of their sons, and live as best they could. Helen’s accident did not help matters because from that point on, she was no longer able to work. On January 7, 2017, Helen’s husband passed away. At that time, she was living in Thornton, and paying about $ 300/ month in rent.

 Helen’s life then unraveled very quickly. She could not afford to stay in her apartment, and her sons could not afford to help her. Her youngest son, who lives in Washington State, initially brought her out to live with him, but she and her son did not get along, and her son and his wife did not get along, and that living situation deteriorated within 4 months. Helen was now homeless. She moved in with a woman from Idaho, but that situation also did not last, and she was homeless again. Helen eventually made her way back to Boulder, where she found out that she’d had two minor strokes: one dated to the time of her husband’s death, and one when she left her grandchildren in Washington State. She was disabled, recovering from addiction to opioids, and homeless in Boulder. For a short while, she moved into her oldest son’s camper where he was living with his wife and dog, but it was too small a space, so she ended up going to the North Boulder Homeless Shelter. She was physically assaulted there twice by another homeless man. When she told him to stop, and he did not, she pushed him. Another homeless man, not having seen that she had not initiated the confrontation, reported her, and she was kicked out. Helen says she slept outside only two or three times, and it was only after being tossed out of the North Boulder shelter. After that, she went to the Lodge on Baseline, where she had no issues and was well liked, and stayed there for 15 months, until finally getting her own studio on February 1, 2022.

Helen and her youngest son have never spoken again. She misses her grandchildren a great deal, and worries especially about a grandson, aged 8, who has a life-threatening disease. Her oldest son still lives in Boulder. He and his wife work a lot, but Helen sees them a few times a month, and talks to him almost every other day. Her oldest son keeps her up to date about her grandchildren in Washington state.

 Helen also worries about the unhoused. She especially worries about them being out there in the winter. She is concerned about the population of people who don’t want to be housed, and thinks addiction to hard core drugs impacts some people in this way. Helen wants them to “take care of their life.” When I asked her about mental health issues, she said she sees more problems due to what people are told about their mental health. She said she does not always agree with MHP. From what she witnessed at the shelter, she believes that the people suffering from mental health issues are generally more dangerous to themselves than to anybody else. Helen also thinks drug addiction is on the rise amongst the unhoused, especially in the last few years. She said she tries to help other people with their addictions, but knows they need to help themselves. Helen said a lot of the unhoused people in Boulder know her, and that she will continue to do what she can to help them out. She expressed gratitude for Jennifer Livovich and the Feet Forward crew: “I’m so thankful that people out there have them out there. They never forget. They’re out there week in and week out, and are amazing people.”

Helen told me she is so happy she doesn’t take prescription drugs anymore. I told her how unusual and remarkable it is that she was able to get off them without addiction treatment, knowing how terrible the withdrawal must have been for her, and knowing how many people were not so lucky, and did not survive. I think this alone is testament to Helen’s strength and perseverance. Helen’s story is also about how quickly someone can go from feeling relatively secure to being homeless, due to a tragic set of circumstances not of their own making. I’ll end with Helen’s words:

 “Don’t ever give up on yourself. Because if you give up on yourself, nobody can help you.”